Jan 25 2012, 3:37 am
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EmpirezTeam
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Not sure what you mean. You don't have to pay for exposure. You simply have to pay for your game to be listed on BYOND. You can promote your game yourself for free by just opting to not use a BYOND hub.
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Hubs are no longer free for non-members, so if you were able to create one, that is a bug. I understand MM's complaints since there is always backlash when you pull a formerly free feature. But we have also put in a lot of work to improve the website-- which is a new free feature for all (it may not seem that way just yet, but with usage and refinement I guarantee this system to be better than anything we've had here before).
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EmpirezTeam wrote:
Not sure what you mean. You don't have to pay for exposure. You simply have to pay for your game to be listed on BYOND. You can promote your game yourself for free by just opting to not use a BYOND hub. And... get people to connect to my game how exactly? BYOND still doesn't allow people to use their linking system for other things other than the hub. Unless you mean I should tell them to download BYOND, go through all of the installation process, then tell them to click "Open Location", then tell them the IP to type in to play. Oh wait, that feels like a private server of a game with how annoying it'd be to set up. I can't imagine getting players like that. And around BYOND... yeah, they aren't gonna fetch for that idea of the Open Location thing. It's hubs, or you get no exposure, always has been. @Tom: If you understand it, why do you do it? Hell, I guess I can somewhat understand making it watered down (no listing)... but you removed the right to make a hub unless we pay for the membership which inflated by almost 50% just to lose the blog, which was a TREMENDOUS loss, guilds, and to regain old free features. That's not marketing at all. | |
Or you could pay the $24 and, you know, help us out. This isn't freaking charity.
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You can tell them to click a link.
Oh but that might take away from your whinging about Tom not providing free webspace for you. | |
Tom wrote:
Or you could pay the $24 and, you know, help us out. This isn't freaking charity. I lol'd. | |
Tom wrote:
Or you could pay the $24 and, you know, help us out. This isn't freaking charity. Pros only paid 18$  But on a more serious note I'm kind of surprised (I shouldn't be) that people are getting up in arms about the hub change. There are a lot of other engines where you have to pay to even use it, and others lock features unless you pay up. Losing the ability to create guilds (that very few used as anything but a blog) isn't a huge blow, and it's not even like there isn't any option online for free blog hosting. Seriously though, I'm all for this update just for the ability to post images in a modern style forum. | |
It's a curious one, but you can certainly understand the sentiment. I think the issue you'd find is BYOND has largely been under-charging, and that from a developer's viewpoint, what you pay for in your $24 was not only good to start with, but has just got a whole lot better.
Classic BYOND library and game problem: How do you track bugs people find in your stuff. Even being on your game 24/7, you need a mechanism to organise these reports. Answer: Hub bug and feature trackers. Integrated with BYOND's key system, it becomes a very natural step for you as a developer to have mechanisms on your game to look inside player saves, for example, on a per-key basis. Get a bug report about saving? Grab the key, download the savefile off the host via your game / inspect the save in-game itself, see what's up. Page the user to get them onto the game with "Invite to X" feature, the login, you roll along an debug junk. It's pretty slick, when you think about it, and lends itself to getting real good assistance off bug reporters in a central manner. | |
Yeah, I think that's the crux of this issue. The site changes are a net positive for developers (And thus players in the end), but a net negative for people who were using Byond as more of a social networking site than a development/game one.
I forsee the outcry to this change being almost entirely dead in 3 weeks. | |
Stephen001 wrote:
It's a curious one, but you can certainly understand the sentiment. I think the issue you'd find is BYOND has largely been under-charging, and that from a developer's viewpoint, what you pay for in your $24 was not only good to start with, but has just got a whole lot better. ...the hubs turning into a mangled mess like the rest of the site and you just having old features is "a good deal"? Wait, are you justifying raising the price by almost 50% and taking away free features? | |
If you really don't like it you can leave. BYOND had four of five members per week. They had to do something before going broke and getting forced to shut it down.
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I love it.
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Avainer1 wrote:
If you really don't like it you can leave. BYOND had four of five members per week. They had to do something before going broke and getting forced to shut it down. Proof of those statistics considering how many members there actually was? I said it before, you don't market a product by increasing the price, taking away features and allowance of features that were previously free. | |
Moonlight Memento wrote:
Avainer1 wrote: Okay, this is getting kind of ridiculous, Tom has been running byond for over a Decade. I think he knows more about running a business, and more about the situation at hand than some random guy on the internet. | |
The new site looks good! I'm not quite sure what setting is making me get a new email for every comment in this thread, though... could I reduce it to a daily digest maybe?
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Gughunter wrote:
The new site looks good! I'm not quite sure what setting is making me get a new email for every comment in this thread, though... could I reduce it to a daily digest maybe? I agree on that one. Also, nice to see you again, Gughunter. | |
I can only assume it's the alerts system they are using, but I'll pass it on. Basically if you go to Manage your account, there's an option about halfway down on the left of your "Index Card":
Alerts Forward alerts to ... Are either of those ticked for you guys? | |
Techgamer wrote:
Moonlight Memento wrote: I said it before, you don't market a product by increasing the price, taking away features and allowance of features that were previously free. This is basic stuff. Why does it need to be explained? Also, nice appeal to authority, makes you look credible. | |
That did the trick, Stephen001... for some reason I was thinking of those as radio buttons rather than checkboxes. Thanks.
Darker Legends -- thanks! I am currently in the midst of some plans that may give me more time for the things I care about, including BYOND... we shall see! | |